How
did Alabama handle it? It is time to hand out grades to all those involved.

This
class, I'm afraid, is pass/fail.

Gov. Robert
Bentley. The governor was not only the
first person in real authority to speak out against racial discrimination in
the Greek system. His statement sounded real.

"I think it's absurd that you don't select
the best person and that you would ever discriminate against anyone because of
the color of their skin," he said, sounding for all the world like a governor.
He went on to challenge alumni who stood in the way of integration. "Personally,
I think they need to change their attitude," he said.

Pass.

University
of Alabama President Judy Bonner. If you look
to a president for leadership in a time of crisis, you came to the wrong place.
While Bonner did tell white sororities to re-open their bidding process, her
words were weak and wishy-washy. In a press conference last week she repeatedly
called barriers to integration "real or perceived," as if they were a delusion.
Instead of apologizing for systemic racism, she seemed the apologist for a
system that for decades condoned it.

Fail.

Alabama Greek Segregation Protest Sept. 18, 2013University of Alabama students, faculty and others march from the steps Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library to Rose Administration Building on campus to protest racial segregation in the school's greek system in the early morning on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2013. (Ben Flanagan/al.com)

Students. Not all of them get the same grade, of
course, but more than a handful of white sorority girls questioned why
tradition and convention – and meddling alumni – kept black girls out of
contention in their sororities. They saw wrong and tried to make it right. The
student newspaper, The Crimson White, did the same. It broke the story that
made national headlines. Students marched, and questioned, and held forums. Grown-ups
resisted change at UA. Students changed it.

Pass.

Alumni. First, alumni
advisers for sororities literally blackballed prospective black sorority
members. Then they were too often silent, or weak. Too
few were willing to say the obvious. It was wrong then. And it is wrong now.

Fail.

The
UA Faculty. The faculty stood tall, marching with students,
issuing departmental condemnations, and defining what the university must do.
Faculty members demanded first of all that UA simply acknowledge the Greek
system is by "by its very nature, racist" (which the administration did not
do). It urged the school to demonstrate in both words and actions that racism
will not be tolerated.

Pass.

UA
Chancellor Robert Witt. We haven't heard a ... whit. Not since 2011, anyway, when
Witt, then UA president, made clear his view that Greeks are "independent social
organizations" that can do what they want. "It is appropriate that all our sororities
and fraternities – traditionally African-American, traditionally white and
multicultural – determine their membership." That kind of talk got him ... promoted.

Fail.

The state of
Alabama.
Many Alabamians will flush over this story. They see it as another
embarrassment, a black eye that will give the world reason to look South and see
the Heart of Dixie as a bastion of backward, bed-sheet-wearing bad ol' boys. And
it is embarrassing. It is the state's failure, after all, that allowed this systemic
racism to exist for ... forever.

But
this is not a story of pure embarrassment. It is a time of bravery and a moment
of change. Young people pushed against the most rigid and archaic of our
traditions, and maybe, just maybe, the wall will come down. There is a long way
to go. But because of those students, Alabama is moving, kicking and screaming,
and pulling its own so-called leaders along, to a fairer future.

Finally.

Alabama
doesn't get a pass for its past. Thanks to a small group of brave young people,
it does get a pass for its present.

John Archibald's
column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the Birmingham News, and on
al.com. Email him at jarchibald@al.com